The principle of forgiveness is commonly taught in both traditional religions and secular
philosophies as being an important virtue. We are supposed to forgive others because that makes
us better people, while failing or refusing to forgive supposedly means that we are giving in to
baser and more violent instincts. Is this true? Why and in what sense is forgiveness something
we should value and strive for?

There are two primary senses for the word "forgive" generally used in this context: to excuse a
fault or pardon (which means to release a person from punishment or penalty), and to renounce
anger and resentment against a person. I suggest that the first sense is the technical or legal
meaning while the second is the more personal one - and the meaning which tends to be most
emphasized when we talk about forgiveness being a virtue.

This is not to say that forgiveness as pardoning someone from punishment is not relevant.
However, the question of whether and how an offender is pardoned and punished is in our society
today a matter left largely to the more impersonal legal system. That legal system is supposed
to act without anger, so it doesn't make much sense to talk about it renouncing resentment.

The primacy of the personal sense of forgiveness can further be seen in the fact that a person
could conceivably renounce anger without also pardoning from punishment - one does not
necessarily entail the other. On the other hand, while a victim could plead for someone to be
pardoned, it is very unlikely that this would occur unless the person had also made a commitment
to forgiveness in the personal sense.

Thus, if we are to discuss the place of forgiveness as a human virtue, we must look first and
foremost to what occurs within the human mind and heart that would lead one to the renunciation
of anger and resentment, and then second to the possible effect of excusing or pardoning someone
who has done them wrong. The question before us becomes: is it a virtue to renounce anger and
resentment felt towards someone who has wronged us?

It cannot be merely the absence of anger or resentment that we are talking about - after all, no
one applies the labels of virtue or forgiveness to a person who fails to be outraged or angered
over some grievous injury that has been done to them. We also don't counsel forgiveness when a
person is angry and resentful over something trivial or something that didn't really occur. We
should be able to see here that what is crucial is that one has experienced justified anger but
nevertheless chooses to give up that anger and adopt a different attitude.

For Aristotle, the notion of virtue was upon the idea that virtuous conduct occupies some middle
ground between behavior that is excessive and behavior that is deficient. Aristotle called this
concept the "Golden Mean," and so a person of moral maturity is one who seeks that mean in all
that she does. It isn't difficult to see how forgiveness might qualify as a virtue under this conception.

On the one hand, it is arguably excessive for a person to deliberately hold on to anger and
resentment for all of their life, regardless of the wrong that has been done to them. That anger
itself certainly doesn't serve to punish or harm the offender - the only person who loses
anything is the victim. On the other hand, not feeling any anger when that emotion is justified
is arguably quite deficient, so much so that the absence of any hard feelings makes a person
seem almost inhuman or pathological.

As mentioned above, forgiveness as a virtue requires the prior existence of a justified anger
over some wrong. How much anger a person is justified in feeling is unstated, but more
interesting is how long the anger persists. Is forgiveness more of a virtue if done
immediately or if one waits a while, perhaps a year or two? What about a decade or two? Surely
there is no hard and fast rule: how quickly a person can or should forgive depends upon the
circumstances of their situation. Nevertheless, it is reasonable to say that if forgiveness is a
virtue, a person shouldn't wait too long or act too quickly.

But which case is the side of excess and which is the side of deficiency? Perhaps waiting too
long is the side of deficiency in love while forgiving too quickly is an excess in love. It is
often an error to force human experience into rigid, arbitrary philosophical models, but my
dissatisfaction with that explanation may be based in the fact that it wouldn't fit the model of
a virtue lying between an excess of one thing and a deficiency of another.

I believe that a better position is to argue that waiting too long to forgive is the side of
excess - an excess of anger, which means that forgiving too quickly is a deficiency in... what?
Just anger? Righteous wrath? When people complain about what they perceive as unjustified
demands of forgiveness on their part, this is what I think they are talking about.

Forgiveness depends upon the existence of justified anger, and if anger is justified then it is
unreasonable to ask a person to renounce it too quickly or in the wrong circumstances. Indeed,
such a request is arguably unjustified because it involves asking a person to abandon a proper
and fair emotional response to what has happened to them. If that anger is not allowed to run
its course, providing a person with the ability to come to terms with their experiences, then
that would be a deficiency - one which might seriously impede the long-term development of their
moral and social character.

On the other hand, the very idea that anger and resentment should be allowed to run their course
presumes that there is a beginning, middle, and end to those emotions. In other words, the anger
must eventually peter out, placing the individual in a new position that they did not exist in
before. This cannot happen if one holds on to their anger and resentment - it's not unlike a car
stuck in the mud or snow with the wheels spinning furiously. The person no longer exists where
they started the journey, but they are also unable to move on to their destination.

And what about forgetting? "Forgive and forget," the old saying goes, attempting to link the two
in terms of virtuous conduct - but while forgiveness, properly balanced, may be a virtue, I'm
not so sure that the same can be said of forgetting. The simplest point to make here is to note
that if forgetting is a virtue that lies between two extremes, we can only seem to identify one
of them: dwelling and obsessing over some wrong that has occurred. What is supposed to lie at
the other end of the scale?

The more complex point to make is that perhaps the act of forgetting is itself the extreme we
are looking for - forgetting is not a virtue because it takes a valid point (it is excessive to
constantly obsess over some wrong or harm) and takes it too far. Forgetting completely is a
deficiency - one which does a disservice both to the victim and to the offender simultaneously.

This takes us back to an issue about forgiveness that I have thus far managed to avoid: if
forgiving means renouncing our anger, then what emotional perspective is supposed to replace it?
Some religious philosophies would insert "love" into this ethical equation, but I'm not sure
that it is appropriate; at the very least, it is asking an awful lot of many victims.

A basic minimum, it seems to me, would be something along the lines of cautious but optimistic
neutrality. A person who has wronged you has earned a negative prejudice about future intentions
and actions - in essence, you stop trusting them. To forgive, however, means to renounce
resentment and try to restore your attitude to that which you might hopefully show a stranger:
optimistic with some trust, but neutral because you don't trust them too far. You are neither
excessively positive nor excessively negative.

So why is forgetting a deficiency rather than a virtue? Because if the person you have forgiven
eventually earns more trust than when you started out in your neutrality, that means that he has
gone much farther than a stranger. Whereas his offense was a mark against his character, his
ability to move so far is a genuine mark in favor of it - but if you forget, you do him a
disservice by failing to note just how far he has come.

Forgiveness, when it doesn't occur too quickly and doesn't tarry too long, is a virtue because
it helps us to grow as moral and social individuals. Forgetfulness, on the other hand, impedes
our own growth and our ability to understand those around us. Forgive, when the time is
appropriate - but don't forget.